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Greetings, Obsidian fans. Wouldn't it be the greatest thing if they made a sequel to Arcanum?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/500810/
Of course this time it would have to be a much more balanced game than the original, however awesome it was

Hi Folks, I just signed on to the Obsidian forum. I am a backer at the Pillars 2 :Deadfire Fig campaign. It has come to my attention that Obsidian has shown some interest in making a game in the Arcanum universe. Activision owns the IP. I have made a petition at change.org. For the time being the petition results will be forwarded to Activision's Investor Relations Department. The information can be found here. http://investor.activision.com/contactus.cfm I have been in contact with them by email notifying them of the petition.
I feel like there will be a lot interest in this here. Please feel free to sign and share with any friends, groups, and forums you think will be interested. If you do post at another site please share that information here so we don't spam a site or forum too much. Thank you
https://www.change.org/p/ir-activision-com-petition-to-lease-the-arcanum-ip-to-obsidian-entertainment?source_location=minibar
Regards

Hi! I'm a massive fan of Black Isle / Troika / Obsidian as well as a student majoring in Computer Science, a game hobbyist and an amateur game developer. (Disclaimer)
So, my question for today is a very profound one, and one that carries a lot of meaning to me, personally, and especially from a game developer studio perspective: What's wrong with Obsidian?
Everything starts with Black Isle and Fallout, which (if you're aware of the story around the production) was a general huge mother****ing mess. After Black Isle was shot down, the general messiness seemed to follow with Troika games, who made a couple of brilliant yet very flawed games. After that, the legacy, thanks to a few key individuals and their ideals, was transferred into what is today Obsidian.
Now, as a disclaimer, I have to say, I love everything created by these guys: Black Isle Studios, Troika and Obsidian. BI's slogan: "By gamers, for gamers" is still something I keep as an inspiration very close to my heart every single day (as an unknown amateur developer), and what they created is simply beautiful. However, everything created by this troupe and their derivatives has always been somehow fundamentally wrong: bugged as hell, imbalanced as foobar, illogical as hell.
My question is: WTF is wrong with Obsidian? Why can't they make solid products? I know there's a lot of tension between publisher - developer relations, that's always a handful and something for an entirely different discussion, but my presumption here today is that:
There is something wrong with the communication between the designers and the coders in Obsidian?
Because at many times it seems I'm playing a game with a beautifully designed world with lots of content and shreds of the designers souls visibly poured into every single detail, yet at other times I'm stumbling upon the very simplistic, childish even, mistakes that could be repaired with some simple programming with a little bit of forethought. Are you guys talking? Is there something between, even though this time (PoE) you were independently funded, and no publisher has a **** to say about yoru game? What's the problem?
Now, I'm not blaming anyone, I'm simply tryng to inquire some details about your methods into developing games, and whether there'd be something to improve. No doubt I'm going to get a generic response of "yes, we're constantly improving our methods and processes in all areas", but what I'm really interested in is the actual schizms between the programmers and the designers, since that's what I think is the main reason for this outcome.
Anyway, while any perspectives are welcome, obviously I'd rather take on some pov's from the crew.

You guys think that there is any chance of a sequel to Arcanum in the works? I realize that Jason Anderson works for Turtle Rock Studios and Leonard Boyarsky works for Blizzard Entertainment. However, considering that Obsidian Entertainment worked with Jason Anderson and inXile Entertainment on Wasteland 2, I am extremely hopeful to get a sequel to the game I played (and replayed) throughout my highschool years. What do you guys think?

I was thinking the other day about what Tom Sawyer had been saying in alot of interviews about Eternity. How he didn't want it to be stuck in a particular point in time. So i'm thinking wouldn't it be cool if Eternity becomes succesful enough, that a sequel could take place maybe 100-300 years later and have societies that you know and love perish, grand temples and places you fondly remember dacyed and ruined nad your exploits but a mere memory.
Also i happen to get this on my head because i just started playing Arcanum again

Apologies if this has been asked recently, I didn't see a search function on these forums. But is Chris Avellone not doing the Arcanum playthrough anymore? I think the last update to that was in the summer or something. Does the recent YouTube policy on posting video game videos mean we're not going to see it at all?
Any news on this would be appreciated. It was enjoyable watching Avellone deal with the same problems I had when I played the game.

Update by Rob Nesler, Art Director and Brandon Adler, Producer
We showed you this concept that Polina Hristova had developed, back in Update #55:
And here is the in-game level--about to get violent--as developed by environment artist Sean Dunny:
We think it looks pretty good. Thoughts? -R
Arcanum Playthrough
This week, we have the second part of Avellone's two hour playthrough. Chris explores the Shrouded Hills Mines and dies to bandits along the road... multiple times.
Obsidian Jobs
Obsidian is putting the call out to enthusiastic game developers who are interested in working on Project Eternity. To be eligible, you must be in the Southern California area willing to make the daily trek to Irvine, California. If you or anyone you know fits the description and would be interested in joining the Project Eternity team, follow the links below.
QA Lead
The Lead QA Tester position requires managing a team of testers, delegating testing tasks, tracking tester performance, providing guidance as well as coordinating with department leads and owners to ensure all aspects of the project are bug free. The Lead QA Tester position requires a strong knowledge of QA methodologies and practices, as well as an ability to handle and act upon high volumes of information and responsibilities.
Contract VFX Artist
Obsidian Entertainment is looking for a talented self-motivated VFX Artist to create a range of 3D effects and animations for a 3D world.
This artist will be responsible for creating both ambient effects (such as smoke, fire, and lightning) and more detailed prop animation (a tree limb breaking, a glass shattering, etc.). These effects will be created using Maya, but experience with comparable programs is acceptable.
Stop by our forums and let us know what you think. See you in a couple of weeks.

So, this is separate, yet related. Almost everyone on this forum likely at least know what Baldur's Gate is, or played it (or Icewind Dale, Fallout, or possibly Planescape: Torment), but they don't necessarily know what Arcanum was, or even if they have heard of it, didn't play it. I bring this up because several of the people on Project Eternity (primary being Tim Cain) also worked on Arcanum. I'm going to list the best and worst features I remember from the game, and to create a poll from that, so that we can see what people really remember enjoying, so that perhaps that might encourage the developers of Project Eternity to include similar features in Project Eternity. I was going to put a list of things that you WOULDN'T want to see, but couldn't really think of a good list.
Liked/Loved:
- Classless. I loved that my character could be a composite of whatever I wanted. A little bit of a gambler, swordsman, chemist. The Fallout series also did this pretty well, but I feel that Arcanum really provided more concrete opportunities. As an example, there were plenty of people to gamble with, though not all had that much money, and you could get rich if you were good enough. I understand it won't be in PE, and I get the reasons for it. Looks like they are just making the classes slightly less restrictive (depending on the class), which I am a fan of.
- Attributes MATTERED. I believe Arcanum was the only game I have played that had a Beauty attribute, which was well implemented. The reaction you garnered from people was based off of key factors: race, magical/technological aptitude, charisma, intelligence, and beauty. The aptitude was peculiar to the game, so no need to go into detail on that, and many RPGs have paralleled that with your faction alignment. Charisma and intelligence have also been done quite a bit, so no need to dwell on them. But Beauty brought in a new factor. The INITIAL reaction was based on how attractive you were- if you were highly attractive, you were more likely to get a positive reaction, if you were highly repulsive, more likely to get a negative one. I really liked that. In general, there was no need to make your character anything except average, but if you wanted to really "roleplay", you could sacrifice some other attribute to make yourself into a charismatic seducer/seductress that might have bad constitution, or luck, or dexterity, but is highly charismatic and attractive, so gets people to do what they want because of their charm. Or you could make them ugly, yet charismatic and brilliant, and though people would initially react badly to you, they would end up changing their minds because you were actually intelligent and witty.
- Race mattered. Yes, it was set in Victorian times, so it was slightly a product of the universe. That being said, playing as a different race brought LOTS of different things to how you experienced the game. For instance, if you were a dwarf, many elves would react significantly less favorably to you than most of the other races. If you played a half-ogre or half-orc, pretty much no one would react well to you, and many would be plain rude or hostile. I've never played another RPG where it had as much of a net impact on the gameplay and "experience" of the universe.
- Discovery. As a technologist, you could find or purchase schematics that weren't in your normal "skill progression" (the schematics you automatically learned under each discipline). Some of them were simple, some complex. It made it more interesting, because you KNEW that there was more out there and you had more opportunities for developing your character than the "conventional", "standard" method. I think they could have done that with spells too, but they didn't. I would love for that to be a feature in PE, for the crafting or alchemy. You have the "standard" potions/recipes/items you could create, but could learn or find others through exploration or quests.
- Dialogue. Some just generally good stuff. There was "theological", "social", "historical" and "scientific" conversations, as well as just silly. It was a very good mix. I hope there is some real dialogue in this game, which goes outside the bounds of what is "necessary" to the main storyline or even quests altogether.
- Backgrounds. Arcanum had some really interesting "pre-fabbed" backgrounds. You would use these to really laser-focus customize your character. Do you want an "idiot savant"? Well, there was literally a background for that. An arsonist? Sure, got one. And therer were backgrounds specific to certain races, that you wouldn't know about unless you made a character of that race and started looking through your options. I'm pretty sure they said they would have something like this in PE.
- Training. Many RPGs have included training, but I like how it was implemented in Arcanum. You could "max out" a skill, in terms of the amount of points you put into it, but that didn't give you all the benefits. Finding the beginning, expert, and master trainer did that. So if 2 individuals that each had 5 points in melee faced off, it wasn't necessarily an equal fight if one of them had never received formal training. To me, that makes sense, as it says it was learned, but not taught, so it isn't "refined". Also, there were often quests connected to receiving higher level training, which added another dimension to your experience (and sometimes made that training "free").
- Lots of stuff well outside of the main storyline. You could literally wander around and find things. Many RPGs have had this, but I think that Arcanum had proportionately, more opportunities for this. Some of them tied into the main storyline, some had nothing to do with it.
- The economy. There was a really good balance between how much money you could "make" and what you could "get". If you played a technologist, you could make items that sold for more than it cost for you to make them, which was a good way to make money. If you wanted to focus on gambling, you could also do excellently, without having to sell a single thing. Merchants had inventories that changed over time. They might have the same base items, but would occasionally get different things of similar type/value. You didn't have to worry about them "running out" of bullets, or some other type of expendable, because they would restock within a few days. I can't overstate how much I dislike having to find a different merchant to buy expendables from, because the nearest one "ran out". That's ridiculous. They are a merchant- if I'm buying the heck out of them, then they would get more, because it's making them money.
- Pickpocketing dynamics. You could "see" everything that was stealable, and try to take anything. That being said, if you tried to steal their ring, that would be more difficult that swiping some coins from their purse. So it wasn't always based on the size of the item, but rather, the "importance" of it to the subject. Oh, and if you pickpocketed them while they were asleep, you had a MUCH greater chance of success, which makes sense.
- Map travel. I liked that you sort of "watched" as you proceeded from day to day, rather than just "fast-traveling" immediately to another part of the map, just being told how much time progressed. It made the travel seem more "real". It was still fast, but it wasn't instant.
Disliked/hated:
- The graphics. That almost caused me not to play it. It was just too cartoony, and didn't seem appropriate to the subject. Luckily, don't have to worry about that in PE.
- The combat. Pretty strongly modeled on Fallout, and essentially only playable when set on turn-based- pure chaos in real time. Again, fortunately, not going to be an issue in PE.
- Party dynamics. Most of the NPCs you could have as companions, ceased being interesting as soon as you got them to join you. After that, they pretty much became mute. PLEASE Obsidian, don't allow that to happen in PE. I like the conversation triggers that have to do with quest progression, time spent in party, level progress, and interactions with various other NPCs, whether merchants, enemies, or whatever.

Chris Avellone
Got to tear into Arcanum today in the first of our Let’s Play videos – for all the supporters that were willing to pitch in to see the gameplay footage,
. I wanted thank everyone that were willing to up their donation to make it happen, and I also wanted to thank RPG Codex for sending me a copy of Arcanum in the first place from GOG.com. Currently I’m playing it without any fan patches, I want to play the release version. Part of me wants to contrast and compare if I do a second modded version (probably doing a tech-focused run). If that ends up being problematic, I’ll add the mods and then do a rush playthrough to get back to the point I was at so you guys don’t have to sit through the second playthrough. Well, unless you want. Feel free to post suggestions for how you’d like me to play it on our forums or in YouTube's comments for the video – for right now, I’m just playing it as I would normally, which makes it a lot more relaxed. Hopefully, my in-game reactions and critiques should be enough if you’re interested on my RPG takes on any elements in the title. If you have any questions about how I felt about certain elements (aside from Virgil’s sass), feel free to drop me a tweet at @ChrisAvellone and I’ll do what I can! Many thanks to Adam Brennecke, our Executive Producer, Carter Thomas, our production intern, and Justin Bell and Austin Shannon, our audio duo, for getting me all set up and good to you, and to all of you backers for making this happen in the first place. This is a rare opportunity for me, and one that I certainly appreciate – thanks.

Update by Darren Monahan, Operations Guy
Fulfillment
In this week’s update, we go over a lot of different little things going on here at Obsidian. Here’s a quick teaser: I’ll be covering a brief update on fulfillment; we have another three videos of Mr. Avellone’s Let’s Play series in Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, we’ve got some really great news for fans of Planescape: Torment (along with some sexy fan artwork to share!) and lastly, a project we backed recently that we think is pretty cool that you might too. OK, so on to fulfillment! Let’s do this FAQ style. Q: So, what’s happening with the backer portal? A: I’m personally busy putting together a whole new Project Eternity website, which includes our backer portal, RSS feeds (popular request!), as well as including information and artwork about the universe of Eternity. What we know about classes, races, the gods, and more, and this site will continue to evolve as more and more is designed and released. It is a big job though for just little ol’ me, so it’s still going to be a few weeks as I work everything out, but we’ll keep you in the know. Oh, and backer badges come with this system as well. The backer portal will also be a great resource for those of you in the upper tiers who are submitting item, character, or location designs. Speaking of which...! Q: When will I be able to start submitting my item, character, or location designs? A: The guys have been talking quite a bit about this recently and have already started designing out the forms. Our current plan is to have those of you with those tiers be able to input them directly in our backer portal, and you can revise them at any time up to a certain point down the road (which we’ll let you all know – this point is when we would send out your text for translation, and it becomes expensive from this point to make edits.) But until then, start thinking about the concept for the thing you’d like to add! Adam will have an update on that in the coming weeks with more detail. We’d like to make sure there’s enough backstory and content available for you to draw connections from, and our new website will be the place for that.
Let's Play Arcanum: Season 0
, Chris’s playthrough of Arcanum continues, taking your comments to heart with higher resolution, less chair creaking, profanity, Virgil sass, and wolves, wolves, wolves! Part I
Part II
Part III
InXile Announces Torment: Tides of Numenera! If you missed Monday’s announcement by the good folks at InXile, Brian Fargo and crew announced their new Kickstarter project opening tomorrow called Torment: Tides of Numenera. That name may sound oddly familiar, yes! They are making a spiritual successor to the beloved Planescape: Torment. We seriously couldn’t control ourselves here guys, and had to make sure all of you knew about it too as fans of the genre!
We encourage you to check out their website and check in tomorrow to see their new video. ...and that’s not all in Torment news. Incredible artist John Crowcroft sent us some beautiful fanart canvases that we had to share with all of you.
Egads! OK, so I’m not entirely sure how "egads" fits into this update exactly other than to fill the "E" slot in this update title’s FATE acronym, but I digress. One last quick item we wanted to tell you about was a project we "Kicked it Forward" on that we think looks fun and interesting for those of you who like table top dice games. It’s called Dungeon Roll – A Dicey Dungeon Delve. Check it out!
Until next week, -Darren, seeker of Kerfluffleupogus.

Ok. We've the spiritual succesor of Icewind Dale, Baldur Gates on PE. The postnuclear saga from Wasteland, Fallout 1 and 2 continues on Wasteland 2.
Torment, oh Torment has now they own spiritual sucesor on Torment: Tides of Numenera
So, just one is missing: Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.
We need a new steampunk , isometric RPG on this revival.
I think is Obsidian turn to make it

Project Eternity the Documentary Update Article by Adam Brennecke, Executive Producer and Lead Programmer In Update #23 Feargus announced that Obsidian would fund a documentary of the making of Project Eternity without using a dime from the Kickstarter funding. Here's a behind-the-scenes of the behind-the-scenes and some other tidbits about the documentary. We've been working with the documentary team, Tony Jacobsen and Michael Mitchell from Creative Lane Media, for some time. Tony and Mike are very professional guys with years of experience making films, and have experience working with the games industry. They will be with following us with their fancy cameras for the entire production of Project Eternity. Our documentary will be a full movie and released in its entirety when the game is complete. We are targeting a 45 minute film that covers the entire process of the making of Project Eternity from the early days of the Kickstarter, into preproduction, all the way through production to finishing it up and going gold. There will be footage from our team meetings, informal discussions, scrums, and major milestone events. The room pictured above is an office at that we transformed into a small film studio. It will be used to shoot one-on-one sit down style interviews. Documentary FAQ When can I get the Documentary? The documentary will be released when Project Eternity is finished. We will have more details when we get closer to the Project Eternity beta. How do I get it? If you already backed at the $20/$25 tier level (and Slacker Backers via PayPal thus far) and above you will be able to stream it. At the $35 tier level and above you will be able to download it, and at the $140 tier level (and physical tiers above) we will include a DVD / Blu-ray. You can still get access to the documentary stream if you donate to the project today via the Slacker Backer pledge at the Eternity website. Tony and Mike from Creative Lanes Media Season 0: Season of the Wolf (Ghosts), Parts 4, 5, 6 Article by Darren Monahan, HTML monkey The truth behind Season 0's naming reveals itself in... ghosts. Note that this recording was done at the same time as last season, so any fixes or interface errors will not be fixed again until, uh, the real Season 1. (Ed: Yes, that means Chris is probably not using the world map enough quite yet. ) We'll be recording a new batch soon and I'm passing along feedback from YouTube comments and our forums. PART 4
PART 5
PART 6
Next week's update we will have a movie showcasing some of the progress we've made on prototype 1! Stay tuned!

Chris Avellone is playing Arcanum to raise funds for the $4.0 million dollar stretch goal you helped us reach for Project Eternity. It's installed and he’s ready to start playing – we here at Obsidian wanted to know how you’d like it played!
Let's Play Document/Blog
10 minute Let's Play Youtube video bites
Streamed on Twitch
Format doesn’t matter to me, just enjoy it.
The poll will close on Wednesday (1/23/13) at 6:00PM Pacific Time. Thanks for you feedback!

The only game that I've had experience with crafting is Arcanum. I haven't played many of the new RPGs (lack of money, and honestly, these forums don't really have glowing reviews about them in any case) and so I'm not really sure how crafting has been implemented in newer games. I guess FO:NV is the only game that I wish to play and that crafting is involved in it.
I haven't really read much from the devs about crafting and enchantment. Are there any mechanics specifics that someone out there can provide? I also am interested in opening up the discussion towards crafting mechanics that you guys have enjoyed in the past and that you'd like to see implemented in this game.
What are some crafting elements that you've enjoyed and some that you don't think should make it into the game.
From what I understand with Fallout:NV, it seems a lot of the crafting is directed at ammo creation and a few weapons, "potions".
One of the crafting mechanics that I really enjoyed was Arcanum's crafting mechanic of both having to upgrade your technical skill in a field and also having to find schematics to help create new items. The fact that there were 8 fields of study made it impossible to become an expert in all the fields, and would only come in multiple replays of the game. I would like that to be done in PE as well. From what I understand with Fallout:NV you only have survival skills, explosive skills, and science skills that much matter. I'd like it to be a little more involved than that.
Baldur's Gate 2 also had a nice "Cromwell's smithy" mechanic where if you found certain otherwise useless items, cromwell the blacksmith could make some legendary items for you. I never really used any of them (most of the epic items you had to kill bosses for: e.g. Holy Avenger), but that was a good mechanic too, although very much less involved. I'm not even sure you could call it crafting.
Anyway, what things have you guys enjoyed in previous crafting mechanics? What would you like changed? Any interesting ideas that you think the PE team might want to explore?